Mr. Speaker, having known this minister now for quite some time I realize that there is a lot of care and a lot of compassion in her heart. I can understand that. We have talked a lot over the years about the squalid conditions on reserves, the poverty that exists. The conditions, by the way, are not getting any better; they are getting worse in many cases.
I have continued to visit these reserves on a regular basis, right up until the time we returned to the House this month. Apparently nothing the government has done over the last six years has improved the conditions. They continually get worse and there are more and more problems.
It has also been brought to my attention that in 1993 members of the House said that we had to do something about the one million children living in poverty. Today it was reported that poverty has increased by 66%. That means we no longer have one million in poverty, we now have 1,600,000.
It was also reported this morning that for every one million children who go to school, 166,000 of them go hungry.
These are the problems that exist. They are worse today than they were in 1993 when the government took office. What has the government in mind to deal with these problems? Programs designed for the year 2001 are not going to make a lot of people happy. What is it going to do tomorrow to alleviate these problems? What measures is it going to take to eliminate these serious problems? Instead of all the fluffy talk, where is the meat? Where is the action? I want to see it.